Date:         Mon, 13 Dec 1999 14:06:41 -0500
Reply-To:     Howard Schreier <Howard_Schreier@ITA.DOC.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Howard Schreier <Howard_Schreier@ITA.DOC.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Removing non - printable chars from fields
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It's best to think of the manuals as a source of building blocks for
solutions, and not as a source of "turnkey" solutions.

Hex strings are a particular type of character constant. Character
constants are a subset of character expressions. Functions generally
accept expressions as arguments. So it would be exceptional and
surprising if one could *not* use a hex string as an argument in the
COMPRESS function.

> Well perhaps, if you happen to know that '0D'x is a legitimate entry to
> compress. I have found no reference to this in the manuals.

> > 10 seconds' worth of experimentation reveals that the
> > COMPRESS function
> > accepts hexadecimal codes.